Friday, December 26, 2008

Giving back

Employees at St. Paul’s Riverview Station have built a tradition of giving back to their community. Each year they adopt a family in need and provide gifts and other essentials to brighten the holiday season. They’ve been doing it for more than 20 years.

“Riverview has a reputation for having a pretty close-knit group, both amongst ourselves and in our neighborhoods,” said letter carrier Diane Ellis Eckert. Sometimes they contact the local schools to find a family to help. Otherwise “we know our routes and we know our families.”

This year’s sponsored family lost their mother to domestic violence earlier this year. Volunteers shopped earlier this week and now a bounty of toys, stuffed animals, sporting equipment, winter clothing and lots of other goodies flows across the manager’s office, waiting to be wrapped and delivered. “Participation is 100 percent,” Ellis Eckert reports. “Everybody takes part in some way.”